By H.T. Longale

Thousands of feet below the waves, three girls glided through cold water. Their feet sunk deep into the brown ooze carpeting the ocean floor. Each clutched a seaweed net and a coral staff. Crimson glowed from their leathery black bodies. Dim indigo light from a faraway sun filtered through the seawater sky. 

Their feet danced up boulders, gently launching and landing. Ivory crabs suddenly scuttled into hiding, behind some sea lilies. The girls’ hearts beat stronger, colouring their skin scarlet. This new hue absorbed the indigo light from above — rendering camouflage.

Nets unfurled, they jabbed staves into the lily bed. Crabs zipped out but the nets captured most. Skin darkening again, the girls began to head home.

A shark’s rough skin brushed past one girl’s head, swirling up her hair. Terror constricted her gills. From behind a boulder a brown octopus, wearing a collar of carved coral, rolled out. It intercepted the shark’s path.

The octopus angled, squirting luminescence. Confused, the shark veered off course. Instinctively the girls again turned their skin scarlet. But the scent of their young meat roused the beast. The shark lunged for the smallest girl.

Her two friends thrust their staves, ripping flesh near its cold eyes. It fled, blood-clouds dissolving in its wake.

Continuing homeward, they approached some volcanic vents. Cluttering each vent was rubble rife with creatures. Beardworms probed from their spindly tube-homes. Giant clams rested amid mineral chunks. Crabs zigzagged around chimneys of metallic lace made from particulates spewed from the fissures. Often the fissures burped, spurting super-hot clouds that whitened the water. 

One of these vents had been cleared of clutter. At its edge stood a man with black skin and tangled hair, neck-gills pulsing. Iron slats lay near his webbed feet, next to a pile of ingots. His tools worked over a magma-laden fissure.

His young daughter, the smallest of the trio, levitated near. 

Blue signals flashed along his chin, asking, A good expedition? 

Yellow blips from her cheeks told of their adventures. The other girls amused themselves by pestering flatfish. Some fish skittered up to the intruders, nipping off snippets of their waving hair.

The father held up a green-lit finger. Daughter, slow down! Green was the colour of warning in the abyss. 

Sorry, Father. We netted crabs. Encountered a shark but our pet saved us. So scary!

Her father projected, Almost finished here. I will accompany you home.

When the man finished gathering tiles into a seaweed sack, he slung the sack over his shoulder. The girls floated along as he trudged through slime, heavy sack in tow. Their pet octopus faithfully trailed. Eventually they climbed boulders which led them to the underside of a dry cavern.

Home again, the father knelt on the floor and reached into the water to pull up the girls. Automatically their gills shut, nostrils flaring to inhale steamy air. The cavern stretched far, passageways snaking throughout the dying volcano’s underbelly. Fresh water dribbled down the walls. 

Hammering away, a work party laboured nearby. They bustled around a spherical iron capsule, silently yelling blue-hued orders. Some adjusted plaques of silica, resettling these windows within the sphere. Others crimped slats into the hull. 

Another crew inspected an enormous set of lungs harvested from a dead sperm whale. After filling the lungs with air from a hot vent, they checked for leaks.

Last was the enormous coiled tether. It had been woven from mysteriously Heaven-sent debris — ribbons of an inorganic elastic material that rained down for the past three generations. Learned elders could only compare it to seaweed which on occasion also floated down from Heaven. An omen, they declared, perhaps a divine gift that needed a purpose.

One worker paused to flirt with the girls. My, you are all so beautifully camouflaged. Why, I hardly saw you come near!

The girls giggled. 

The father responded with ultramarine cool. How goes our replacement vessel?

Nearly finished.

A group of hungry labourers cheered pink when they saw the crab-harvest coming.

The father asked, And has the tether passed our pull-test?

Easily.

The time of our next launch?

Three sleep-cycles from today. 

The young girl turned to her father. Why do you need a vessel to travel upward? 

To travel safely, he replied. You remember Great-Grandfather? He discovered the seaweed that gave us such strong nets.

But why couldn’t we just swim up there? 

He patiently explained, Without a vessel the pressure will unwind your skin. Your body will fall apart. How it was so when my pet octopus had, in its blind faith, trailed our vessel and swam toward Heaven. Nothing left, just shreds of flesh that the Heaven Fish nibbled.

How terrible! 

Ah, but the risk was and still is worth it. Such breath-holding sights! A brightness so wonderfully blinding! The colours are even more radiant than you can imagine.

Oh, she gasped, how I wish I could see!

You would never get your fill of the messages bombarding your vision. And the shiny fish! And big sharks! And other odd animals and plants. Green in colour, if you can imagine such a thing!

Green plants! she cried.

Yes, Daughter, he dreamily mused, Heaven is bizarre. Most intriguing of all, there looks to be another cavern up there that is so luminous and vast that I could not see the end of it. 

His daughter quieted, deep in thought. Someday I would like to visit Heaven. Do you think perhaps I could be the first one to set foot up there?

Her father’s eyes grew stern.

She added, Could you make an iron suit for me? So that the pressure wouldn’t kill me?

His chuckle rippled pink along his cheeks. What an idea, child! I never would’ve thought of it!

Yet he looked deeper into her eager eyes. His daughter’s face danced with colour, her smile fueling the spark of hope within his own heart. He said to her, Perhaps. Maybe I shall build a little iron suit for you, one day.

About the Author